Dale J., Intel is playing hardball. One thing is for certain: Slot I will be the standard, sooner rather than later, and Celeron/PII will be the dominant chip in the business AND retail segments. Intel is using price and performance (faster chips at a super-low price) to make sure this happens. Grove is making sure Intel does not lose its dominence anywhere...paranoia or good strategy??? Probably both. Grove learned his lesson from the memory chip business in the 80s, when he saw Asian cos. take over significant market share. He is making sure this doesn't happen at Intel. Also, by using agressive pricing, Intel is literally keeping resources away from AMD/NSM that would go to future investments...and in the semiconductor industry, this is huge. But, the anal-ysts don't seem to get this.
As for AMD/NSM, I suppose Intel wants them to survive as opposed to being bought out by a Big Fish. After Slot I/II and PII/celeron become dominant, Intel will probably ease the gas pedal a bit on pricing. AMD/NSM will probably survive on their 10-15% SS7 nitch somewhere. Remember, Intel wants to segment the market (just as long as PII/Celeron fits in most of these segments <ggg>).
anyway, this is fun to watch.
joey |
